“…he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.” ~ Matthew 5:45 (NLT)
With the baseball playoffs in full swing, so is the analysis, critique and dissection of every batter, pitcher and situation. As I watched a batter/pitcher match-up, I heard a commentator describe the fact that the batter in the spotlight was a prolific fast ball hitter. “He can handle the heat.” As you would imagine, that was precisely why he got a steady diet of curve balls.
Hitting a curve ball takes discipline, patience, confidence and practice. You have to fight the natural inclination to overreact, to claim an address before the pitch has moved in.
Several months ago, when Sarah Rose delivered the fourth child in the Rose family, she and her husband, TJ, knew that something was wrong. In fact, they had been warned before they saw Ali for the first time. They weren’t completely sure what the complications would be, but they knew what the prenatal tests had shown. Reality exposed what tests had predicted. And thus began a journey, a fight, a faith testing pitch that by all accounts was a monstrous curve ball.
We’ve read the emails, and we’ve prayed. We’ve talked to friends, and we’ve prayed. But on October 12, 2006, little Ali slipped away. And as she did, many of us heard the powerful crack of the bat against leather. For although TJ and Sarah Rose had been thrown what seemed to be an unhittable curve ball, they had the discipline, patience, confidence and faith to respond… or rather to wait. They hoped without clinging, they fought without desperation, they loved without certainty, and they trusted without giving up.
Curve balls. Those nasty curve balls. They beg us to overreact, to swing at the wrong location. But when, by God’s grace, we’re able to wait for the pitch to expose all that it has, then the pitch is indeed hittable.
Curve balls, really, really tough curve balls get thrown at the just and the unjust. ~ Matthew 5:45 (DSW)
To the Roses and the many others that hit these pitches every day, I bless you, thank you, and commend you.
TJ and Sarah… our hearts are with you.
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